“To see the best before I have properly begun would be somewhat premature.”

I started as a songwriter and wanted to be like Leonard Cohen. I’ve always seen my stories as enlarged songs.

I try to always go for something very interior, following thoughts and memories, something that I think is difficult to do on the screen, which is essentially a third-person medium.

And if these incidents now seem full of significance and all of a piece, it’s probably because I’m looking at them in the light of what came later.

I have the feeling of this completely alternative person I should have become. There was another life that I might have had, but I’m having this one.

We all live inside bodies that will deteriorate. But when you look at human beings, they’re capable of very decent things: love, loyalty. When time is running out, they don’t care about possessions or status. They want to put things right if they’ve done wrong.

It is one of the enjoyments of retirement that you are able to drift through the day at your own pace, easy in the knowledge that you have put hard work and achievement behind you.

I was a little concerned that a lot of people thought I wrote Merchant Ivory movies. I also thought if I was ever going to write something strange and difficult, that was the time.

The evening’s the best part of the day. You’ve done your day’s work. Now you can put your feet up and enjoy it.

One is not struck by the truth until prompted quite accidentally by some external event.

As with a wound on one’s own body, it is possible to develop an intimacy with the most disturbing of things.

What interests me is the surprising enormous extent to which most people accept the fate that’s been given to them, and find some dignity.

If you are under the impression you have already perfected yourself, you will never rise to the heights you are no doubt capable of.

I can’t even say I made my own mistakes. Really – one has to ask oneself – what dignity is there in that?

Now naturally, like many of us, I have a reluctance to change too much of the old ways.

Even the solitude, I’ve actually grown to quite like. I do like the feeling of getting into my little car, knowing for the next couple of hours I’ll have only the roads, the big gray sky and my daydreams for company.

There’s still a part of me that thinks I have to write a really good novel. I’m not trying to say I’m not happy with the novels I’ve written in the past. But it always feels to me like there’s another one that I have to write that will really say what I want to say, and really paint this world that I can see hazily in my head.

Who are a little wise the best fools be.

The worst reconciliation is better than the best divorce.

Suffering is the very best gift He has to give us. He gives it only to His chosen friends.

Hunger is the best sauce in the world.

Now, I am perfectly willing to just enjoy my career by choosing roles simply because I consider them to be a challenge and doing the best possible job I can.

I have lost my seven best friends, which is to say God has had mercy on me seven times without realizing it. He lent a friendship, took it from me, sent me another.

In the end, the best way to succeed is to go small. And when you go small, you say no – a lot. A lot more than you might have even considered before.

Becoming the best version of yourself requires you to continuously edit your beliefs, and to upgrade and expand your identity.